


Creation at Sea

by Fisticuffs



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Ego Wins, Further tags in notes you might want to read, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 15:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14547276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fisticuffs/pseuds/Fisticuffs
Summary: Two weeks after they lose against Ego, Peter wakes up. Someone is excited to meet him.





	Creation at Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe one of the most horrible works I’ve ever written. Hard to tell. I’ve written some terrible things. I kept this in my folders for months, but I figured... Why not upload it? So I did.
> 
> NOTE: I’m really not sure how to tag this. Horrible stuff happened but there are only past mentions of it. So I am going to put those warning tags in the notes at the bottom. They're a bit spoilery to the fic, so read them if you want the warning or start at the top if you can guess what you’re in for or otherwise don’t care.
> 
> I want to say the jumping off point for this fic would be if Yondu did not inspire Peter to use the light with his heart. Round two against Ego never started and they lost in that moment where it looked hopeless.

When Peter came to, he was not suspended from the ceiling of some ornate throne room. He was in a bed. He was sore and exhausted but comfortable. People were speaking in hushed voices.

“Don’t go over there,” one cautioned. “He is _not_  going to be happy when he wakes up.”

“He is not wakes up.”

“Give it a minute.”

That was Ego.

Against every protesting joint and muscle in his body, Peter sprang up in bed. As soon as his eyes were open, he searched for a weapon, but there was nothing in the domestic bedroom setting. Instead, he jumped out of bed and lunged at the man. He pushed until Ego was up against the wall.

“I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!” Peter tried to choke him, but his fingers barely indented the skin of his throat. He was weak and Ego was strong.

“You know that won’t do anything, Peter.” Ego pushed his hands away like a buzzing fly. “Even if you could kill this body, I’d, well, I’d just make another one, wouldn’t I?” He put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, and the casual push knocked him back two steps until he found his footing again. He was very weak.

“How long have you been draining me?” Peter demanded. His mouth was dry. His voice was tired. His hoarse words held no intimidation.

Ego rolled his head back and forth as he thought. “Two weeks,” he said, “maybe three.”

“The Expansion?”

“Making its unceasing progress.” Ego looked so smug. “I’m still not done using you, of course. We’re not done.” Eradication of the universe and he was proud!

“You bastard!” Hitting him would do more damage to Peter’s fist than Ego’s face. He did not care. Someone needed to do it, and he was the best candidate for the job.

He never connected.

“Did you not think...” Ego raised his hand and it lifted Peter from the floor. He dangled in the air as gravity was manipulated around him. “For one minute... that I’ve been getting stronger while you had your beauty sleep?” He flicked his fingers and Peter flew back and forth in the air, swinging like a helpless pendulum. “Come on, Pete, you’re smarter than that.” When Ego swung his entire hand, Peter slammed into a wall. Then he hit it again and again, not solely as cruelty, but as a lesson.

“Do you see what happens now? What happens when you disobey me?” Ego was not talking to Peter.

“No, stop!” a high voice begged. “Please stop! Don’t hurt him.”

Ego sighed long and loud before setting Peter back on the floor— upright but landing on his knees instead of his feet. He was eye-level with someone he had not previously met.

“Who the hell is that?”

“Oh!” Ego looked down at the little boy. “Just something I made to pass the time. I got a little bored, a little lonely, and—” his mouth made a pop— “here he is.”

He was a tiny little guy, not even four feet high, but his excitement gave him twice the presence. His auburn hair was cut level with his ears and grew out in waves. His eyes were round and curious. There was a tooth missing in the front of his smile.

“Peter!” he exclaimed. “Good morning. It is nice to meet you. How are you doing today?” He extended his small hand and made the entire greeting look like something he spent a very long time rehearsing.

Peter did not shake his hand or answer his question.

“I think he came out looking a lot like you,” Ego remarked, and it was true. The kid looked like a reasonable copy of Peter, only slightly different from his actual childhood appearance. It was obvious and easy to fill in the explanation that the bastard made himself a new Peter, one who would obey. “He has been a _much_  better son than you ever tried to be.” It was not a shortcoming Peter could make himself be upset about. “Still haven’t thought up a name for the little guy though.” Ego ruffled the boy’s hair. “Feel free to call him whatever you’d like.”

“I don’t care,” Peter muttered. He had no interest in naming one of his father’s make-believe pets.

“You should be grateful to him, Peter,” Ego chided. “It’s only because of him I woke you up. He wanted to meet you.” He put a hand to his chest. “Personally, I had decided to let that temper of yours cool for another century or two or... ten.”

“You killed my mother,” Peter growled between clenched teeth.

“I killed the love of my life,” Ego redefined, making himself sound like a victim in some way. “But what’s done is done. Meredith is gone. Humanity and a very noticeable percentage of the galaxy, gone... replaced. Everything is me, but this planet,” he gestured all around and out the window, “is us— you, me, and now this guy.” He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave him a fond shake. “So you might as well get used to it.”

Peter put a great deal of emphasis into saying, “Screw... you.”

“See that right there.” Ego pointed a judging finger at him. “That attitude, that’s why I was going to leave you asleep.”

Peter stood on his shaking legs. “Man, stop trying to act like you’re my father, giving me a timeout or some shit.”

“I am your father,” Ego replied, the unfortunate truth.

“Screw... you.” It felt good to say. “Screw your giant friggin’ brain and the rock it rode in on.”

Ego threw him against the wall again. “All right, well,” the man said, “I’ve about had my fill of your ungrateful, pissy little attitude.”

Peter slid down the wall, and the boy Ego created was quick to rush to his side and make certain he was unhurt. Peter pushed him away and sat up.

“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Ego said. He grabbed either handle on a set of double doors and closed them as he left. “Do whatever the hell you want.” None of it would prove dangerous against him.

He left them alone.

After the doors closed, the boy gave Peter a hug. It was odd and completely unexpected, so it took him a minute to react and pry the kid off. “All right, all right,” he muttered. “Just... stop being weird, you little... whatever the hell you are.”

The boy sat back on his knees and grinned, parting his lips very wide as if he were unpracticed at the expression. It was unnerving.

Peter got off the floor. There was a pitcher of water on a round table. He had two glasses. The second one went down slowly as he thought.

There was no telling the state their plan was left in after Ego snatched him up for good. One thing was certain: the bastard still needed to die.

Peter did not have access to more Anulax batteries, nor did he have Rocket’s knowledge on how to make another bomb, but he did have novice experience at tapping into an even greater power.

The light was still there, far beneath his feet, grounding him to the planet, coursing through him. After so long of it connecting with him, living through him, Peter found it more easily. He sensed it in the air like a heady fragrance. It was there. He could use it.

Sitting on the bed helped him relax. Peter took off his boots and let his bare feet touch the floor. Everything around him was made by the light. He could feel its living presence.

Peter tried as hard as he could, focused as deeply as he could, and yet he could make nothing bigger or more useful than a glowing softball. He blamed the fact that he could not properly concentrate.

A different and annoying ball of energy crawled all around him on the bed. “Do you want to see my room?” the boy asked.

“No.” Peter did not want to see his room.

“Do you want to see the garden?”

“No.”

“Do you want to see the fish?”

“No.” Despite crafted beauties, he did not want to see Ego’s world. He wanted to destroy it.

“Do you want to eat food?”

Peter was starving. “No.”

“Do you want to play with all my toys?”

“No.”

“Do you want to swim in the pools?”

“No.”

“Do you want to race each other?”

“No.”

“Do you want to spin in circles and fall down on the ground and then look up at the sky all dizzy?”

“No! God! Could you just—” Peter took a breath and let his frustration fade. “I’m trying to do something here.”

“Okay.” The boy sat back on the bed.

Peter concentrated. He inhaled deeply. He exhaled. He focused and—

“What are you trying to do?”

“Damn it!”

He left the bedroom for some privacy on the balcony, so of course he was followed.

“You are trying to use the light?”

“Ding, ding,” Peter muttered. “We have a winner. Tell him what he’s won.”

The boy hopped up and sat on the banister. “What do I win? What do I win?” he inquired with a smile.

“No, you don’t... Nothing.” The kid did not get sarcasm. “And get down from there before you fall.” It was an eighty-foot drop at least. Peter pulled him down onto the balcony floor.

“Do I win if I do this?” The boy held out his hand and with very little effort, he manufactured a ball of light, bigger and more stable than Peter’s. Of course one of Ego’s creations could use the planet’s energy, not that it was beneficial to Peter’s plight. He marveled at the impressive orb for several seconds before dismissing it.

“There’s no prize,” he said.

The ball faded and shrunk until it disappeared. “Oh, okay.” The boy attempted to hide his disappointment by pretending he knew the truth all along. “You want to play with the light some more?”

Peter shook his head. “Not right now.” There would be no concentrating until the little pest was gone. He was probably a spy Ego placed, watching Peter even when he was not there.

They stood in silence while Peter thought. He leaned against the banister and the kid did the same. He crossed one ankle over the other and the kid copied him. He flicked his nose and the action was imitated. The boy even echoed Peter when he sighed. It would have been annoying if the purpose were to be annoying, but he was only trying to follow an impressionable example. He copied Peter to be like him. He thought Peter was cool. It was a little flattering.

“Hey, little man,” Peter asked, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen anyone else on this planet?”

He gave a confused expression. “The people?”

“Yeah, the people,” Peter said with a nod. “Any people, have you seen them? Preferably a lady with green skin or a guy with lots of red marks on him? Maybe a rodent-looking thing or a blue man with this, like, red fin on his head? Right about now I’d even settle for a blue girl if you’ve seen her.”

“Yes, I’ve seen those people.”

“Yes!” Peter exclaimed. Ego was keeping them alive, probably as leverage. “Yes, yes, yes. Okay, now _where_... are the people?”

He pointed in one direction, but all that was at the end of his finger was the horizon. The curve of the planet was less distinct than it used to be. The entire world was larger and seemed more flat because of it. “It is a way long way away,” he said, “because Ego won’t let me drive the ship.”

“Could we walk there?”

He thought about it. “Yeah,” he said, “we could walk there.” Excitement blossomed the more he thought about it. “You want to walk there with me?” Peter had never seen a kid look so thrilled to go on a hike.

“Yes.” Peter tried not to sigh with relief. Kids were easy to manipulate. He had this one thinking the whole trek was his idea. “You lead the way, buddy.”

The boy held out his hand and waited for Peter to take it before he would start walking. Kids were needy little bastards, and Peter was reminded of taking care of Groot.

The hand was small and delicate against his palm.

Unnecessary ostentation made the palace a confusing maze of far-extending hallways and innumerable corners. Peter barely had the hang of directions when he was there before, and now everything seemed different, bigger. Luckily for him, however, the kid knew the place like the back of his hand. He dragged Peter down hall after hall, taking the swiftest route to outside.

“You, uh, you play around in here a lot?” Peter assumed.

“I play everywhere!” he cried. “And now I have you to play with!”

“No, no. We’re not playing,” Peter corrected. “We’re on a mission.” But what little boy could hear the word ‘mission’ and not get excited? “A serious mission,” Peter emphasized.

“A serious mission,” he repeated with a stern voice that attempted to be deep. He squinted his eyes and pushed down his brow to appear stern, but it only made him seem like he had a rock in his shoe. The pretend-adult led them outside.

“So, uh, how old are you supposed to be?” Peter asked. He had never been good at guessing children’s ages, and this one was an exception-and-a-half.

“Five,” he said, and he held up his free hand with all five fingers extended.

“You’re supposed to look five,” Peter clarified, “or you are five?”

“Uh...” He drawled that one syllable and had difficulty answering, but his response was very sensical. “Both.”

“So you’ve probably been here longer than me,” Peter surmised. He wondered if the kid knew a way to get off planet.

“No,” the boy disagreed. “You’ve been here longer. I’ve been here five. You’ve been here seven.”

“I’ve been here two weeks,” Peter told him, “three tops.” Children were shit at telling time.

“Ego said you’ve been here seven.”

“Yeah, well Ego’s a liar,” Peter muttered.

“Yes,” he quickly agreed, saying it as if he were trying to please Peter, make the man like him. “Ego is a liar.”

The kid marched happily on as if their united opinion of Ego gave his entire life purpose. Peter considered this was what it felt like to have an annoying little brother. He sort of liked it.

For an hour or more, he followed where the kid pulled him. Peter trusted he knew where he was going because the floral spires and rushing rivers all looked the same to him. The last thing he wanted was to get lost with only one other person to come collect them.

“‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog,’” Peter sang. “Okay, and then you say...”

“‘He was a good friend of mine,’” the boy continued with a grin.

“‘I never understood a single word he said.’”

“‘But I helped him drink his wine. And he always had some mighty fine wine.’”

“There you go.” Peter patted his back. “And maybe in another hour you’ll get the next set of lyrics.”

The boy laughed loudly and awkwardly, but it was pure happiness with no ulterior motive. “Can I meet him?”

“Meet who?”

“Your friend,” he said, “Jeremiah. Can I meet him?”

“What?” Peter chuckled. “No. What? Jeremiah’s an... unintelligible wino bullfrog— imaginary bullfrog. He’s not real. Probably just the result of a bad trip... or a good one.”

“Oh, okay.” His disappointment was short-lived. “You are all the friend I need, Peter. You are the best friend.”

“Yeah, about that...” Ever nuance of the weird boy bugged him. Peter understood little and was flummoxed by much, and confusion was a disadvantageous thing to have on Ego’s planet. “Why did you want to meet me?”

“I always wanted to meet you,” he said. “I asked for a long time. I asked when it was day, and then I asked when it was night. Then I asked when it was day again. Then I asked when it was—”

“Okay, yeah!” Peter interrupted. “I get it. But why?”

The boy turned melancholic. “Ego is not a very good friend sometimes,” he murmured. “So he made me friends.” He shook his head. “But they were just Ego again in a different shape. But you—” he was excited— “Ego said you have your own brain. So I asked if I could meet you. I asked when it was day, and then I asked again when it was—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter cut him off. “The asking. Yeah, I remember that part.”

“You do have your own brain,” the boy decided.

“How are you so sure?” He did, but he wondered how the kid could tell.

“Because you don’t like Ego,” he said, “and Ego always likes Ego.”

“How many times has he tried to fool you with ‘friends’?” Peter questioned.

The boy began counting silently on his fingers. When he moved onto his second hand, Peter told him to never mind answering.

“Tell me again,” Peter said, “how is it I know that _you’re_  not an extension of Ego?”

“Because Ego _always_  likes Ego,” he repeated. “Sometimes I like Ego. Other times, I do not like Ego. So see, me and you are not made of Ego _brain_. We are only made of Ego _body_. That makes us different.”

“So he did make you.” Peter did not know the extent of Ego’s abilities, but a lifetime of practice still told him the best way to make a child. “You got a mom out there somewhere?”

The kid thought about it. “No.”

She was probably swallowed up in Ego’s fancy-labeled genocide, the Expansion, or she was dead before then, like Peter’s mother. “But you did have a mom?”

“Yes!” he answered with a bright smile. He swung their joined hands back and forth.

“And what planet are you from?” The boy looked Terran. All his features and the color of his skin resembled Peter. But there were several dozen planets where people passed for Earthlings.

The question confused the boy horribly. He thought for several seconds on his answer. “I am part of Ego.”

“Yes,” Peter groaned, “I know you’re part of Ego. He’s your... father, whatever. Technically, yes, you are ‘from’ him. But what planet were you born on?”

“I don’t know.” He was upset that the only answer he had was not good enough. He was upset that he could not tell Peter what he wanted to know. Big glossy eyes blinked up at him like they were about to cry. “I have been here for as long as I can remember. I don’t know the other planet.” He hated to disappoint. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, whoa, just...” Peter petted his head with an awkward hand. “Don’t worry about it.” Clearly, the boy had been there a long time if he could remember no other planet. He had been there longer than Peter, and even though he could harness the light, Peter was the battery. “Has Ego ever tried to use you for the Expansion?” he asked. “You know, like, did he try you first before draining me?”

He thought about the question. “No,” he said. “Ego always says two Celestials is enough for power. He did not need to use me when he had you. Hasn’t needed more.”

“Yes, but _you_  were here _first_ ,” Peter argued. It was exasperating to talk in circles with the kid. “He must have tried using you before he gave up.” He most likely did try, but that little body was not strong enough. Only Peter served Ego’s purpose.

“No, no, no,” the boy disputed in turn. He was as frustrated as Peter that they could not make their stories sync and make sense. “Peter is here for two weeks. I am here for five years. Peter has been here longer.”

“No, damn it,” Peter huffed. “That’s not how time works.” The boy was still at a stage where he accepted whatever adults told him, but their disagreement about time confounded him. “Weeks aren’t longer than years.”

“But Peter has been here for my whole life,” he said. “Peter helped make me, so see? I can’t have been here before you have been here.”

The statement made as much logic as it did chaos.

“I... what?” Peter did not understand, but the boy quickly clammed up. He pressed his lips tight and hid them between his teeth. “What the hell did you just say?” Peter shook the kid but it did not rattle any answers loose. “You said I helped make you. Bullshit.” He did no such thing.

“I can’t say,” the boy mumbled between clenched lips. “Ego said—”

“Ego can bite me. What are you trying to keep from me?” The boy shook his head. “I deserve to know!” It was his life, his body. Whatever Ego used him for, Peter had a right to know. “Tell me what you’re not supposed to say.” It was a misunderstanding, but the only way he could clear it up was by making the kid talk. “Tell me!”

Targeted by such ire from a man he only wanted to please and befriend, the boy gave in. “You are my—”

“What did I say?” A voice appeared behind them, and speech was the first noise its presence made. “What... did I say?”

They each turned with a gasp of surprise. Ego was behind them.

“What did I say?” the man repeated. “I gave you one rule.” He was livid. “One rule before I woke Peter up for you. What was it?”

The boy was ashamed and afraid. He mumbled the answer he was not allowed to withhold. “Don’t tell Peter he’s my father.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Ego yelled, “tell Peter... he’s your father!”

“What?!” Peter exclaimed. They had forgotten him completely, but now their attention returned. “What the hell did you do? You made me- me father that kid?” Peter did not understand what happened while in his trance, and he did not think he wanted to know. He had to ask. “I’m supposed to be his dad?”

Ego sighed and dropped his hands down. “‘Father,’” he said, “is such a gender relevant term, not... role specific.” He did not make any greater sense.

“What did you do?” Peter asked again.

“What you are,” Ego told him, “is mother.”

Peter stood frozen on the spot, trying to make sense of the insane. Mother? He was not a mother! Mothers were mothers.

“No, but I...” The disagreements in time, the limits of biology, his proud status as a man, none of it made sense! “What?!”

“I know, I know.” Ego waved his hand to calm him. “You’re confused.”

“You’re damn right I’m confused,” Peter stated. “You’re over there talkin’... I don’t even know what! And...”

“Peter.” Ego thought of his best, most level-headed explanation. “For a year,” he recounted, “I stood looking out at the cosmos, watching myself spread, feeling the galaxy become me.” The contentment on his face was as short-lived as its enactment. “But it was lonely, as I said before, as I had been when I first set out in search of life. My true purpose realized and I only had one person to share it with, one unconscious... unruly person.” Peter’s refusal to abandon mortality and embrace sociopathic domination had ruined his beautiful plans for companionship. Ego was alone but not alone. He had someone without having them at all. “And as I stood there deep in thought, I said, ‘Just... because you and I are the end of all life doesn’t mean life should end here.’” He nodded his head in reverie. “So I didn’t let it. I... advanced life.” He furthered life. He created life. In Peter, he made life. “I wondered if I could do it.” And there was his greatest motivation, his final decision maker. Ego was not lonely for companionship, not completely, not exclusively. He did not long for someone with whom to share his wisdoms, someone he could raise with pride. He was only curious.

“Not possible,” Peter objected. Ego was curious like a cat but he lied like a snake. He wanted to punish Peter by tormenting him with images he could not confidently contradict. “It’s not possible.” Peter’s biology was unconventional by Earth standards, but he was still a man. “You’re lying.”

“This is my planet,” Ego reminded him. “And on my planet, almost anything is achievable. The only limit is imagination, and I have a _very_... vivid imagination.” From one mind, he evolved. Ego manufactured a planet and all its life without any outward inspiration. And now there did not exist a single sight within Peter’s vision that the man did not create. Everything was his imagination. “Adding to your internal composition,” he shrugged, “that was child’s play. I made something from nothing. It’s what I do.” He explained it all as mundane and unimportant. Ego rearranged Peter’s physiology and grew excluded organs inside. And then he grew more. “After that it was all fairly traditional,” he said, “from the act of conception to every fetal evolution until the end.”

Peter’s mouth was dry. His eyes could not blink. “I don’t believe you.” He refused.

“No.” Ego dropped his hand, relieving it from gestures of explanation. “No, of course you don’t. I knew you wouldn’t. I knew you wouldn’t.” He was not angry or disappointed at Peter. This was always the expected reaction. “When I was done, I put your body back exactly the way I found it,” he promised. “Well, almost the same. Obviously, I could have gone through the entire process without leaving a mark, but in a moment of genius I thought that one—” he held up a finger— “scar might help you believe me later.”

“What scar?” Peter demanded. “Where?” It was not as if he took the liberty of examining himself in a mirror since he woke up.

Ego pointed at his stomach.

Peter followed the finger and looked down. He swallowed hard in hesitation. He grabbed the hem of his shirt and began pulling up, but then he decided to turn away and put his back to the two of them. With cold dread, he raised his shirt. His torso was as taut and toned as he remembered. Nothing was out of the ordinary there. But when he lowered the waist of his pants and bent his head to look closer, Peter observed a thin white line crossing his lower abdomen. He had enough experience with pricks and gashes to know what one looked like when healed. He had been cut. A very sharp blade cut him in a smooth line with a singular intent. A cut, as if he were opened. A cut, as if something were removed.

Peter almost sobbed, but he managed to swallow it down with a muffled choke. It was not real. It was a nightmare, a mind-begotten terror of his unconscious state. It was not happening. It was not happening!

“He is our son.” It was cruel to erase any doubt. Ego was cruel. “My son made with the son of the woman I loved.” It was not sweet or romantic, not as he made it sound. “And he came out perfect,” Ego attested. “No defects, mental or physical.” He said his assuaging comforts on purpose, knowing Peter knew that children conceived in such an unnatural way were often affected by the too close association in their genes. But Ego accepted nothing less than perfect. His children’s lives depended on it.

A child. A child between Peter and his father. An abominable child, a crime against humanity and the most basic of decencies and all true. Peter did not want to believe it was true. It was true. Ego was adamant that the entire declaration was true. He meant it. Why would he lie over its authenticity when he should only have buried the facts down deep? Who made something like that up?

A child with his father.

Peter wanted to throw up but there was no food in his stomach. Apparently, he had not eaten in seven years. Bile came up— sour, acidic bile. He heaved and heaved and when he was done, it dribbled down his chin. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“Are you all right?” the boy asked. He reached for Peter and the man recoiled.

“No, no, no.” He backed away, tripping on grass and his own two feet. He managed to stay standing. “Get that- that- that _thing_  away from me!”

“Now that’s not a very nice thing to say about your son,” Ego scolded.

“It’s my _brother_!” Peter shouted.

“Prioritize whichever role you want,” Ego permitted. “But even a... sibling rivalry doesn’t allow for such harsh putdowns, Peter. Come on now.” He acted as if he pulled two brothers apart from a good-natured tussle.

“Hey, a-hole,” Peter exclaimed, “he’s not my rival. You are!”

Ego pretended to be calm. He stressed it thin trying to keep himself controlled. He wanted Peter at his side. He would always want it until he had it. “There’s no reason anyone has to be,” he compelled. “You don’t _need_  a rival, Peter. Not when you have this.” He gestured all around them. He gifted paradise. “The three of us could be quite content here. We could be a family. You want that, don’t you, Peter, a family?”

He did. “I have a family,” Peter declined, “my friends. I have my friends. This freakshow can kiss it.”

“Friends won’t last forever,” Ego rebutted, “not like us, not like... the three of us. You’re special, Peter. You both are, and I’m proud of you. You’ve been everything I could have asked for.” They were everything he demanded. They became it or he dismissed them. “I love you both.” It was a lie. “For different reasons.” Ego’s love was wrong and it was grotesque. His loved ones paid abhorrent prices. “I’ve never had a child like him,” he reflected, “meaningless.” He grinned at the boy but the sentiment was only appraisal and self-pride. “The others (even you to an extent) were merely... tools for the Expansion. But he... he fulfills his own purpose. He’s the reason people have children: to have a child!” The boy’s purpose was innocent, but every mean and damage in getting there was odious. “He’s useless, Peter.” Ego spoke as though it were a great honor to be and a greater one to observe. “We have so much work to continue, you and I, but... don’t you want to be involved with him? Don’t you just want to watch him do nothing all day?” The boy’s worthlessness fascinated Ego.

“I want,” Peter repeated, “nothing... to do with this.” He wanted to quit it all: the conversation, his paternity, the Expansion. “You are disgusting... and I want nothing to do with you or your science experiment.”

“Okay! Okay, okay,” Ego placated. “You’re upset. I understand. I get that. But would you really have agreed if I woke you up to ask permission?” Peter did not respond to the asinine question. “I do, however... apologize that you had to find out this way. Horrible circumstances, I know. Not what I would have wanted. I’m not crazy of course,” he claimed. “I knew it would all come out eventually. I just thought we could make it more than _one goddamn day_!” The boy flinched at the harsh tone and angry words directed at him.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered.

Ego drew in a deep inhale. “That’s... all right,” he said, though he remained discontent. “Like I said, Peter would have found out eventually... all the sticky truths.”

“Sticky truths?!” Peter shrieked. “My father had sex with me!”

“I only did it until it took,” Ego defended. “No more, no less.”

“That is not even remotely the point!” Peter could not get a deep breath. “You—” His body tried and failed to vomit a second time.

“I was very gentle with you, Peter,” Ego assured, “and very, very patient. And then, of course, with all of my experience, I made certain you greatly enjoyed yourself.” It was disturbing how easily he admitted to raping his son while he was unconscious. Peter did not want to hear it. A five-year-old did not need to hear it. Peter’s eyes must have flickered to the boy in consideration, that or else Ego could now read minds and they were all doomed. “Oh, don’t worry about him,” Ego dismissed. “I took a page from your friend Drax’s book. I thought it was a somewhat engaging tradition to speak of conception, especially one so... ingenious. He knows all about how he was made.”

“You sick son of a bitch,” Peter spat.

“I leaned from my mistakes with you,” Ego said. “I’ve fixed them with him. We have a crowning, open relationship. He’s my pride and joy.” He spoke as if trying to make Peter jealous, as if that were possible. “Finally I’m able to be the father I always wanted to be. He took to the light as soon as I taught it to him, just like you. But unlike you,” he derided, “he didn’t turn out to be a rebellious disappointment.”

“Oh, don’t give me that shit,” Peter scoffed. “You don’t care about any of us. You won’t even give him a name.”

“Naming is... difficult.” All his prior children were kidnapped from their homes, from a life already lived and a mother already in love. Ego could not do that. He could not care about anything well enough to name it. Peter might have met Mantis nameless if such an obvious moniker did not come with her. “And there’s- there’s not exactly a reason to rush either, is there?” Ego was ancient and he was patient. “He’s my greatest creation. I’m waiting for the right name, for... inspiration.”

Peter snorted at his dramatic excuses. “You and I both know you woulda killed him if he failed what you want, if he wasn’t perfect, if he couldn’t harness your goddamn light.”

“You would have killed me?” the boy questioned. He had been mostly silent at the edge of their conversation but attentive to every word, to Ego’s word against Peter’s. His little mind did not know what to believe. But bastard or not, Ego was his father and the only person he had ever known. “That’s not true.”

“No,” Ego lied. “Peter is... mistaken.”

The kid was a dog called to choose between two owners, only Peter did not want him. That did not mean Ego got a pliant puppet.

“You wouldn’t have felt anything,” Peter said, recounting what Ego told him. “Isn’t that right... Dad?”

Ego fumed. His face contorted in fury and heated like a kettle of water set to scream. “You want to go back to sleep, Peter?” His voice was calmer than his temper. “Is that what you’re hoping to get? Huh?”

Peter did not want to be pulled back under sway of the light. He was not strong enough to fight it. He was useless there when his friends needed him. The galaxy needed him. He could not go back down.

Being the paragon of a stubborn child, Peter huffed between clenched teeth: “No.” Ego had all the leverage and they both knew it.

“‘No’ what?”

That smug bastard. Peter wanted to rip him apart. It would have to wait.

“No, sir.”

“All right then.” Ego sighed in relief. Peter’s submission relieved him. “Good... good.” Power over the situation was his again. “Then stop filling the kid’s head with your... wild exaggerations.”

Peter did not care enough to set the record straight. Let Ego insist on whichever story he wanted for the time being. He would get his.

“With respect... sir,” Peter pretended to have, “I’m going to kill you. If it’s the last thing I do, I will. Sir.” He always did know how to piss people off.

Without a gesture or a twitch, signaled only by Ego’s thought, a tendril of light broke through the earth and stabbed Peter.

“Ah!”

It hurt! It hurt but it did not injure. He was whole, but the manipulated power raged through him like lightning, electrifying. “God! Hah!”

It was gone as quickly as it came. The bolt receded and the ground regrew over its burrowing hole. Peter fell to his knees.

“Hah...” He gasped pain-filled breaths. “Hah... hah...”

Ego was done speaking with him. Peter was still too obstinate to favor. He turned towards his malleable son, a child who confessed that often he did not like him.

“Sweetheart, take Peter back to the palace,” Ego ordered. “It’s almost time for you to eat lunch.” Peter and the boy were mortal enough that he had to feed them. Their withered forms would not regenerate.

The boy almost obeyed without a thought, but then he decided to stand up to his father. He showed courage. “I was going to show Peter the people,” he said, and he was trying so hard not to cry or back down. “He wants to see them, Daddy.”

Ego considered the request and glanced between the headstrong child and his weakened eldest. “All right,” he yielded, “go. Let Peter see his friends. It’s not like they can change anything. It’s not like there’s a ship to leave on.” Ego thought he planned against anything Peter could throw at him, but they were not finished yet.

“I’m going to kill you,” Peter promised, but it was spoken softly at the ground, not enough threat to be taken seriously, not that Ego ever would.

“I’ll see the two of you at dinner,” the man said. “Maybe your brother can teach you a few manners between now and then.” Ego did not hear or else did not acknowledge the expletives Peter tossed at him. Without another word or dismissal, his physical form sunk into the ground, letting the planet reabsorb him.

Peter was alone with the boy once more, alone and yet he felt watched. It was impossible to pretend privacy as he stood on his enemy’s back.

He was helpless against his father. Ego could do whatever he wanted. He could do anything and Peter could not stop him. He could do anything.

“Is it true?”

An entire conversation buzzed in his brain and Peter still did not want to believe. The idea that a parent— even one as warped as Ego— could purposefully do that to their child was as ludicrous as it was nauseating. Peter could not wrap his head around it and accept facts. He could not.

“Is it true?” he asked again. His fingers scraped at cool grass. Dirt pressed in beneath his nails.

“Ego lies,” the boy said. He stood on the steady ground of an unstable brain and tried to comfort Peter, the adult in the situation, his brother, his father.

“Did Ego tell you the same goddamn story he just fed me?” Peter’s voice was quiet. His mind was subdued.

He nodded. “That is how he always told it to me.” The kid had no reference point to the rest of the civilized universe. The poor son of a bitch did not even know. He began to understand it now. “Is that wrong?”

What good would the truth serve? The boy did not need Peter screaming what an abhorrent monstrosity his existence was.

“Yeah,” he said. He could not stop himself. Peter had his own shit to deal with. Collateral damage in someone else’s life was the least of his concerns. He wanted to lash out and be hateful. The kid was the only target around. “Yeah, that’s wrong. It’s the most seriously _messed up_  thing a parent can do. You don’t make kids that way— ever. It’s wrong. Ego’s wrong. You’re wrong. I... I didn’t do anything. I didn’t! It’s not my fault. None of this is my goddamn fault.”

“Oh.” He did not know that, and now, because of Peter, he did. “I’m wrong?” The little boy’s world was shaken, and yet his still developing brain could not fully comprehend the flagrant error of his existence. Every piece of knowledge in him was taught. He had no experiences. He did not know the widely understood violations against nature. He only had Ego’s word against Peter’s, and Ego lied. So like Peter, he tried to make sense of his situation. “I paint outside the lines sometimes,” the boy told him, “in my color books. It is wrong, but Ego says it’s all right. He says I will get better. I will get... less wrong.”

“It’s not the same.” Peter found his own humanity and managed to stop himself there. He stopped before telling the kid he would always be wrong. No time or skill would correct him.

“You should see your friends.” It was the distraction they both needed. Everything else could move to the backseat if they only let it. “Come on.” He pulled on Peter’s arm. “Get up.”

“Don’t!” Peter threw up his hand to ward off the boy. “Don’t touch me.” He stood on his own. “Let’s... find my friends.”

The terrain changed as if Peter’s mood willed it. They left behind lush flora and tall trees to trudge across a sandy plain. Beauty and ignorance stayed behind. A tense silence stretched across loose earth and desert weeds— for a little while.

“Do you think you could ever give me a name?” the boy asked. He spoke very soft and it was pitiful. He was afraid of Peter now. “I am sorry Ego made me.” It was not his fault, but Peter could not make himself say that comforting fact. “I like you much more than him,” he said. He smiled at Peter. The expression was not returned. “So it would mean much more if _you_  gave me a name. I would love it no matter what.” Peter had some real ugly ones that could test his resolve. “You can give me as many names as you want,” the boy implored. “Like how you are called Peter, and Quill, and Star-Lord. I think Star-Lord is such a cool name, Star-Lord.” The usual pride that came from hearing his alias fell flat. “I never thought about it so much until today, when Ego woke you up. When there are three people, names are important.”

“All I care about,” Peter told him, “is finding my friends and getting off this a-hole planet.”

“Oh...” The boy faltered and stopped. When Peter kept walking, he ran to catch up. “Could I come with you, do you think?”

Peter did not answer. The quiet endured for several minutes until the boy found courage to speak or lost willpower to shut up.

“What is Earth like?” he asked. “See because I am— Because I am three-four Celestial, but I am one-four Earth. So I have always wondered what it is like.”

“Right now,” Peter replied, “I don’t even know what Earth is like anymore.” He had no idea of the damage caused by Ego’s conquest. He did not want to think about it. All he wanted was for the kid to stop bringing up his genetics. “How much further?”

“Almost there.”

They were almost there.

“Is he keeping them in a cell?”

“A cell?” He was confused.

“A cage,” Peter groaned. Kids were stupid. The one walking beside him was genius for his age, but kids were stupid. “Bars holding them in. They can’t get out.”

“Oh.” He understood. “Yes. The people asked me to let them out once a long, long, _long_  time ago, but I did not have the key.”

“Do you have the key now?” Peter asked.

“I do not have the key.”

Of course not. “Whatever.” It did not matter. As long as he got to see them, Peter could sort the rest later. They would figure out a plan. The future had to be better because the present was shit. Peter wanted to skip ahead and get out of it. He needed the next stage. He was so tired.

Peter nearly tripped over his own feet. He was weak from not eating. He was exhausted from being used as a battery. A trek across miles of planet was the last thing he needed, despite being exactly what he needed.

“Are you all right, Star-Lord?” Even the kid could tell how wiped out he was.

“Don’t call me that.” It was a name given to him by his mother, inspired by his father. He could not handle Ego or the boy using such a personal name, not just yet. “Peter’s fine.”

“You are fine,” he questioned, “or using ‘Peter’ is fine?”

Peter did not answer. Nothing was fine.

The ground was mostly flat in every direction, so when a tall mountain peak approached them on the horizon, it was noticeable the entire time they marched towards it.

Noonday sun did not travel far into the cave, and yet the kid walked fearlessly into its mouth. Peter followed his example.

As they went, the boy molded balls of light between his hands. He set them in the air and the orbs floated like weightless bubbles that accompanied their steps and lit their way. It was bright as any flashlight.

“Ego gives me many lessons,” the boy told Peter. It was clear that they were not educational lessons but cautionary and disciplinary ones. “Your friends are one of them. The people fought Ego, like you did.” He was taught what happened to those who went against his father. He was warned against ever considering it. “But you do not like Ego and you are not inside a bars, and now you are not asleep anymore.” Peter was not asleep because the kid begged for him to be woken up. How pitiful that young life was when he had to plead for days on end just to have a friend, to have someone to talk with and play with besides Ego. And at the end of Peter’s murderous intentions, even their father would be gone.

“You can come with me,” he said, though nothing would give him greater peace of mind than to leave the boy behind and never think of him again. He wanted to leave him. He wanted to forget an abomination like him had happened. “When I have my friends... when I’ve got a way off this planet and I’ve killed Ego... you can come with me.”

“I can?” The melancholy of his past hour melted away. He was excited again. He was positively elated to know he would be at Peter’s side forever, his brother, his father.

It was a mistake to let him come along. Peter knew that. But leaving an innocent child all alone was equally faulted. Peter could fly to the edge of the galaxy but he would never forget him. “On one condition.” The boy got one chance to get it right. “You can be my brother, but I will _never_  be your father. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

Peter ground his boots to a halt and stared down at the boy. He knew the severe face he made was intimidating, but he was so adamant about that sole condition that he could not be lenient. “Never,” he repeated. And loudly, almost a shout, he said again, “Do you understand that?”

“Yes!”

And that was the last straw. Finally, in the middle of a stressful day, the little boy cried. His big lip quivered and his eyes scrunched up tight. He whined in his throat before blubbering out loud. One by one, the floating lights went out, dropping them into darkness. Peter grabbed a bulb and kept it living. With its dim light he could see the boy hiding his eyes behind his hands. He cried.

“Geez, just...” Peter let the light go and it hovered obediently. “Come here.” He opened his arms and the boy walked between them without hesitation. He rubbed his teary eyes and wiped his runny nose on Peter’s shirt. He cried.

“I’m sorry,” he wailed. “I’m... sorry. I’m...” He continued sobbing. He continued apologizing for being born.

“Damn it,” Peter sighed. It was a good thing he was not a parent. He would have been terrible at it.

“I’m sorry,” the boy mumbled.

“No, I’m sorry.” Peter felt like a real asshole.

“No,” he insisted, “I’m sorry.”

“No, you stubborn little ass, I’m sorry.” Peter had to have the final word, especially when it was an apology to some innocent kid. “It’s not fair what that bastard did to us,” he said. They were both put into an unfortunate situation they never asked for.

“That bastard.” Most likely the kid did not know what he repeated, but he knew it felt good to say it.

“A real bastard, yeah.” Peter rubbed the boy’s back to make him feel better. He could do this for his little brother, his little brother who was nothing else, nothing more. “Big ol’ son of a bitch.”

“Big old son of a bitch.”

“There you go.” Peter ruffled the boy’s hair and pulled him away. “You’re gonna be all right.” He stopped crying, and that was the best case scenario in their situation. “Come on, David.” Peter slapped his back and pushed him on. “Light this bitch back up and show me the rest of the way to my friends.”

The boy did so without hesitation, creating even more lights than before. Brief happiness inspired him. They carried on.

“Why you call me David?” he questioned after a moment. “What’s that mean? It is an Earth term?”

“That’s your grandfather’s name,” Peter said. “You can have it.” He could be a better man than Ego. He could give the kid a name. “I’ll tell you about him later. He had a talking car, ya know. It helped him fight crime.” The boy did not understand any of that, but for the moment, he did not care.

“I am David,” David said, his smile bright and endearing. “I am David.” That was all he cared about. It was all he wanted. “I am David!” He ran ahead, all full of energy and excitement.

“Hey, hold up!” Peter chased after him before he got left in the dark.

“Come on, Peter! We are almost there!”

The lights followed David and Peter followed the lights, seeking them like a lighthouse always just out of reach. He did not catch up until the long tunnel opened into a wider cavern, an underground dome of gray rock. A straight row of bars lined the opposite wall, climbing all the way up into the high ceiling. The boy walked to the cell and Peter approached with slower steps.

“Are these your people?” David asked to be certain. He tapped on the thick bars and it echoed throughout the cave. “These are your friends?”

“Yeah.” Peter looked at the bones of a lady with green skin and a guy who used to have a lot of red marks on him. He saw the skull of a rodent-looking thing and of a blue man with a red fin grafted to his. There was a blue girl who left behind more machinery than bones. “Yeah,” Peter told the boy, “yeah, that’s them.”

“Great!” David cheered. “Can we leave the planet now?”

“No... not yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING:  
> Mention of past rape/non-con  
> Mention of past incest  
> Mention of past somnophilia  
> Mention of past mpreg
> 
> This is just a oneshot. There will be no follow-up. I wanted to write the messed up themes of this, so I did. But there’s no plot moving forward.
> 
> Resolution... idk. Just assume Peter kills Ego eventually. Maybe he and the kid learn to use the light. And beat him with it. Which of course means Peter has to interact with David and get to know him more. So I guess he just has to make his peace with it eventually. Eeh.


End file.
